His frustrations are mounting as the Orange’s losses pile up. After Syracuse was held to its lowest scoring output in 558 Big East games, the 68-year-old Boeheim bubbled over.

“I’m pretty much ready to go play golf someplace,” he told reporters. “If I was 40 years old, I would be real upset. I’m not 40 years old. That should be obvious.”

Syracuse has lost four of five games to close the regular season, including Saturday’s embarrassing 61-39 loss to rival Georgetown. It was the fewest points in any SU game since a 36-35 victory over Kent State on Dec. 1, 1962, before shot clocks and 3-pointers. It also was the biggest margin in the Syracuse-Georgetown rivalry since the Hoyas won by 27 in 1985.

After the game, Boeheim didn’t sound like a coach eagerly awaiting the postseason. He sounded like a man on the verge of walking away and going fishing. He was reflective of his time at Syracuse and philosophical about the end of the Big East as we know it.

“I’ll miss some of these press conferences with you people,” he said. “Everybody’s mad at me for a couple weeks. ‘How can he say that?’ It’s easy. Real easy. I don’t care.”

”I’m not very emotional, so I’m just gonna smile a little bit.”

That sounded like a retirement speech, but Boeheim said in the locker room later that he was referring to the fact that the season is nearly over and not to read anything more into it.

The loss, as bad as it was, was secondary to the feelings felt by the two men who got the Big East kick-started all those years ago — Boeheim and former Georgetown coach John Thompson Jr.

"John and I were talking before and after the game," Boeheim said. "It's a sad, sad time.

"Football just is going to run the ship, no matter what happens, and that's happened.I understand that. It's the way it is. It's the way it has to be, I think. But it's been an unbelievable rivalry, and you don't remember one game or two, you remember the total package of the series, and it's just been a tremendous series form the very beginning."

Hoyas students chanted "A-C-C" as the game turned into a rout in the second half, but they will no doubt miss the team they love to hate. One student's sign included the words: "End of an era," ''See ya" and "Peace out." For once, the ritual signing of "Na na na na, hey, hey, goodbye" had a bit of extra meaning.